New Class for US Nationals

Master Tim has the point.

Following all the rules of the IGC the South African club class recently
was extended to include the Ventus 1 and similar performance ships. FAI
approved list and handicaps and all. The motivation being that the
Standard Class was dying with too few entries to make a race, and a
significant portion of the fleet not competitive in any class.

So - the news is that we now have no standard class racing at all.
(there are only a couple of ASW27s and 24s) Everyone is either in 18m
(Lots of JS1 and Ventus 2, one ASG29 and a couple of LAK17b)
Club class is now an ASW20, Ventus 1, ASW28 class. All the older ships -
including my Std Cirrus are out of contention. The tasks that suit the
higher performance ships make it pointless being there in a 1970s
Standard class ship.

Handicapped racing needs all the competitors to be of reasonably similar
performance - otherwise the "race" becomes so spread out and fractious
that the fun and fairness goes missing.

Set tasks that the Libelle and Cirrus and Pheobus are suited to - and
the Ventus/ASW20 drivers complain it is too short and does not afford
them a chance to race. Set it to suit them and you get situations where
the next thermal is out of range of the first generation, and they
complain that despite the handicap they are excluded from the results by
physics.

So - in our case we still have a limited range of handicaps competing,
but entries are now clustered around the new hot ships.

The first generation ships have retired from racing. But there is
slightly more participation. Does not help when it comes to flying in
Club Class worlds.


On 2012/11/15 5:33 AM, wrote:
Again I want to emphasize my personal Thank You to the rules committee for officially sanctioning the Club Class concept here in the U.S.A. This is a complicated issue and I am certain that much thought and discussion has been spent addressing this issue.

I, for one, do not have a problem making limited additions and subtractions from a club class list of gliders. OR, conceptually, to/from a range of handicaps. Lest it escape anyone's notice, it was our conception of "Club" Class/"Modern" Class split of US Sports Class that was named as such and proven out in Moriarty, NM back in 2010. Yes, we cut off particpation of the upper end of the handicap range. But we did so to make for better racing.

My, and I think other's, big problem is with the opening of the RANGE of handicaps allowed. It is too broad to really offer the benefits of Club Class as seen around the world.

What has proven so popular around the world, and there is absolutely no evidence to say it will not work as well here in the US, is the idea of "limited handicap racing". This is, in fact, what you're trying to do with Std Class by limiting the benefits of handicapping to .95.

Defining the US Club class as something roughly around the Range of the IGC concept WILL bring older, less costly ships into the competition scene - many of them in the hands of good, dedicated pilots.

The currently proposed conception of Club Class has not been tailored to aim at getting these ships into the competition scene. Sure is it easy to parrot the "run what ya'brung" line to promote the "racing fairness" of US Sports Class as a vibrant competition class, but it is not enough to entice many into the game. A fairer, more tailored racing experience for a limited range of older ships can do that.

It is the the Limited Handicap Range that makes Club Class work so well. By opening up the range you dilute the benefits you are hopefully trying to capture - good, fairer handicapped racing.

Thank you again for your work on this contentious issue.

Tim McAllister EY


--
Bruce Greeff
T59D #1771